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1973 or so, in college after 4 years in service and I meet a guy at school (who'll I'll call Joe) with a GM manufactured car running SS. Beautiful car, best of everything. He had $10,000 in the thing, which seemed unbelievable at the time. We'd drive to Northstar dragstip; his car trailered, mine flat towed behind my driver car. He'd check/adjust everything, make a pass, have problems, come back and check/adjust/tinker, repeat.

I'd make a pass, lift the hood to make sure the engine was still there, make another pass. He'd scoff at my car, my apparent lack of dedication, or whatever he perceived. I beleive at the time I had nearly $1800 in my car. I didn't care whether he approved of mine or not, I was just there to have fun, but I was getting tired of the snide remarks. When we'd go to the staging lanes he'd go so far as to always pull into a different lane as far from me as he could get.

This particular trip my Dad had come and Joe's Dad had come. We introduced them to each other and they hit it off well. Apparently both of them picked up on the friction developing between Joe and me. We'd driven to the staging lanes and as usual Joe went way off to the right. As we got closer to the burn out area, Joe was about 5 cars in front of me and I saw the Dads talking to track officials. Joe was getting set to do his burn out in the right lane. The officials had him hold for a minute, and came back to wave me around the cars still in front of me, directing me to the left lane. Joe looked over and saw he was going to run against me, kind of set his jaw and hunched down to business. He did a massive burnout, I chirped the tires through the water as usual. Couldn't afford to wear out my used set of slicks.

We stage, lights come down and about halfway down the track I'm right at Joe's left rear wheel. As if in slow motion I see Joe look over his shoulder, passed my car, looking for me, figuring I'd be well behind him. He doesn't find me, his head swivels back toward the front and as he's doing so realizes I'm nearly next to him. I'll never forget the look on his face.

We came back to the pits and Joe was so mad he wouldn't even talk. The two Dad's were laughing and poking at each other. Joe wouldn't even talk to his Dad as he loaded up the car. He decided there was something wrong with the car and it needed to be put back on the trailer for repairs.

Dad died 4 years ago, but often would bring up that story. Rest in peace Dad. I sure miss you!

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